Thursday Thoughts V
October 16, 2008
It’s true, it took me longer to come up with my bubble blurb then to write the post. My creative juices ran dry today! :~) On with the thoughts!
- I’ve been thinking a lot recently about girls/women and body image. Beth sent me this amazing video about Fat Talk. I almost cried and it’s only a bunch of words on the screen! Can you tell this is a subject near and dear to my heart? Then I stumbled across this site showing examples of airbrushed models. How appropriate right? Please, PLEASE if you have a daughter or a young girl/women in your life show them these links. PLEASE
- Changing gears completely, yesterday I came across a blog post about exercise and weight loss. You guys know how I feel about the exercise thing and most of you know I didn’t really "exercise" while losing weight. Just some food for thought (pun, intended?) for those people who are wondering why all the exercise is not affecting the scale as much as they may like.
- When I was at BlogHer DC I linked to the Playtex Baby You Tube channel as they interviewed me when I first got the the conference. Well, it’s FINALLY posted. I guess I’m not the only one that takes forever to edit a video! ;~P
- Results for the Baltimore Running festival have also been posted! My team did awesome, coming in 285th out of 689! As a team we finished the marathon in just over 4 hours! and I ran 6 miles is 56:16 minutes!!! I can’t believe I beat my goal by almost 4 minutes! There IS something to that whole race adrenaline thing! :~)
- Other running news… I meant what I said about running the full marathon next year. To prepare I’m setting my sites on a 1/2 in the spring and then I’m going to follow Hal Higdon’s training guide for the full next fall. Honestly, I’m a little scared but I know I can do it, I think. :~P
- MizFit just posted an interesting guest post by Lynn of the Hungry Little Caterpillar. Her story reminded me a lot about my friends and experiences being the "chubby one" in High School and College. Weighing in at Weight Watchers this week and mentioning my Scale Habits again in yesterday’s video reminds me that that I have really moved on from the scale. My weigh in was so matter a fact I didn’t really care about the number and I literally haven’t stepped on my home scale in weeks. Honestly, I think this fact is a representation of how much I’ve grown on this journey. The scale was a big part of my success AND problem. I don’t think I’d be where I am today if I didn’t experience all my stops along the scale journey.
- This week I posted 3 things on GreenLiteBites. My 2 point stuffed mushrooms, a quick chicken wrap idea and of course the video of the week. This time the toddler and I make pasta for dinner, it’s 25 minutes of craziness but fun and tasty!
- Other news… I have SO much going on that I’m going to write it out more for my sake then yours. It helps me stay on task. Ok, here goes… I have 3 contest/giveaways coming up! They range from beverage coupons to sports bras with some yummy dessert in the middle. So stay tuned for those. I also have a bread review and another video to get up. Plus I’m working on Tweet, Eat, Post version 2 and my crazy blog roll. Not to mention my main stays of the t-shirts and cook book that keep getting pushed back. Needless to say I’m a busy bee with a messy house and a client that needs more attention then I have hours in the day. Tell me again why I quit my full time job. Oh yeah, to have more TIME! A ha, yea. :~P
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:02 pm Alexia said:
Phew, busy busy! Some fantastic links, thanks! And you can do the marathon. Did you read 50/50 yet?
Check out Alexias last blog post..Part 4, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm roni said:
I didn’t, please link! If it’s online. :~)
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:15 pm Shannan said:
Wow! With the airbrushing, it’s amazing they bother to take photographs at all. Just fabricate everything! :-\
About the article that says that activity increases appetite, I kind of have a problem with the assumption at the end about how activity doesn’t make you lose weight because our appetites increase with activity (thereby making the assumption that we in turn ingest the calories back afterwards). I believe we have a choice to eat those calories or to not eat them. If we burn 300 calories, then maybe we should let that be a 300-calorie loss and not turn it into an excuse to gorge on dessert. Just a thought. I keep thinking that too many people exercise just to get the extra activity points so they can eat more. That’s a way to make the exercise into a crutch for not being able to stop eating when your points run out. Then you’re in trouble when you’re injured or just feel like it’s the chore you’ve made it. It should be a fun thing you do, not for the calories you burn but for the joy of the activity itself.
Okay, I’m moving on….YOU GO GIRL with the marathon training!! I’m so excited for you!
Check out Shannans last blog post..Middle of Week 7 and My First Poll
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:19 pm Runeatrepeat said:
Congrats on the race!!! I haven’t been visiting your site in a while. I am so glad I came across it today. It’s good to see you :) Does that sound weird? Oh well. Your posts have always been very motivational for me.
Check out Runeatrepeats last blog post..Capessa
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm Inny said:
MizFit’s guest post was touching and well-writtent. It was one of those posts that leave me staring at a spot on the wall for a minute or two afterwards, contemplating. Sadly, I saw some of the signs of scale obsession in myself, but I think it’s a necessary obsession at the point I’m at in my weight loss struggle. I haven’t quite learned how to trust my body and listen to its insticts yet, so I need an unbiased measirement to tell me if I’m eating too much or too little or if I need to exercise more. I think it’s just part of the process of learning.
Check out Innys last blog post..On carbs, serotonin and why we binge
On October 16th, 2008 at 2:58 pm Alexia said:
I do have a link — great book: 50/50
The airbrushed photos were unreal. Wow.
The article on exercise was interesting. I’m an exercise fan now (used to be a hater!), but I did have a twinge of “why couldn’t they prescribe bedrest for ME!” ;-) I’m. So. Tired. I’m looking forward to being on a plane for 24 hours in a couple days so I can nap. Lots. Just run down.
Check out Alexias last blog post..Part 4, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
On October 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pm Jenn said:
I strongly recommend Hal Higdon’s training plans. I used it for my first half, and loved it.
Check out Jenns last blog post..I’m not together, but I’m getting there
On October 16th, 2008 at 3:06 pm Shannan said:
I missed reading MizFit’s guest post until now, and I am of the same thinking as Inny above. I use the scale to help me gauge if what I’m doing during the week works or doesn’t work for me. Sometimes I think I feel like I gained, when I didn’t, and just need to know to keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t let gains or non-movement on the scale get me down, since my weight fluctuates within a half pound all the time anyway before I get a loss at the end of the week. Since one of my goals is still to lose some weight (to be a healthy weight), I need to track and report it with WW and my WW friends.
Check out Shannans last blog post..Middle of Week 7 and My First Poll
On October 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm Shannan said:
Jenn -
I’ve been torn between the One Hour Runner program and Hal’s Spring Training for the level above 5K, since I’m going to be finishing off the C25K in a couple of weeks. Would you recommend Hal’s over the OHR, if you know the two? Thanks!
Check out Shannans last blog post..Middle of Week 7 and My First Poll
On October 16th, 2008 at 3:59 pm Annette said:
t-shirts and marathons ……………so exciting! But never as fun as cleaning a messy house ;)
I hope to get to where you are some day with the scale. I avoided it for so many years I am afraid of letting it get too far away now.
Check out Annettes last blog post..Anti-Aging & Free Therapy
On October 16th, 2008 at 4:03 pm SMK said:
Great Links today. I enjoyed the Blog about exercise and weight loss. I never had any success with weight loss until I started monitoring my eating more (I did that by starting WWs). It was always so frustrating to be exercising so much and not lose any weight.
I am always looking for a balance between diet and exercise. Usually I am doing one more than the other. If I’m exercising, I am more hungry and I am eating more. And if I am watching what I eat, I am usually more successful when I am not exercising. its a work in progress.
On October 16th, 2008 at 4:13 pm Thinking man said:
Thank you very much indeed for the shout out, my dear. I admit it’s my first time to your website — I’d not heard of it before — but for the past hour I’ve been reading it rapt. I particularly enjoyed your October 11th post, and also your personal story. Running has been a big part of my life for about as long as I can remember — track and x-country scholarships paid my way through college, and I ran on the so-called circuit afterward — and yet, as counterintuitive as it may seem, I can tell you for real that there’s simply no good correlation between exercise and permanent weight loss: primarily (but not exclusively) because exercise increases appetite disproportionately; so that the act of not eating more calories than you’ve burned becomes a little like holding your breath.
But that’s not what I really wanted to talk about here. I mainly wanted to let you know that you’re an excellent writer, and I think you look great in all your photos, at every weight. Thank you again.
Check out Thinking mans last blog post..Does Exercise Really Promote Weight Loss?
On October 16th, 2008 at 5:11 pm Shannan said:
To response to Thinking man, I still believe (and I do this myself) that it is possible to burn calories without having to eat what you’ve burned. It’s all a matter of each individual’s choice. We are not lab animals. We have the choice to eat or not eat. It is not a matter of starvation for most people. If you are not exercising to be healthy, but are exercising to lose weight, you *will* be fighting a losing battle if you continue to eat the calories you’ve just burned, which is why scientists can make presumptions about the human race as a whole. Your choices get taken away from you by blanket statements.
Check out Shannans last blog post..Middle of Week 7 and My First Poll
On October 16th, 2008 at 6:33 pm Thinking man said:
Hello Shannan,
I think you’re right that it’s possible to burn calories without having to eat what you’ve burned. In fact, I think it’s more than possible: it’s fairly common. Wrestlers and chronic ascetics, for example, who statistically speaking are highly motivated people, do just that. But notice that they’re always at constant effort, in a constant state of resistance, which will frequently — though not always — end at some time, maybe months, maybe years, in binge or collapse. And that’s all I really meant with the holding-the-breath metaphor.
Consider also that the overwhelming preponderance of calories that the human metabolism burns are burned while we’re in a sedentary state — through things such as tissue regeneration, growing hair, pumping blood, all the natural functions of the human body, which happen without our volition. Indeed, on average, the body human in a completely sedentary state burns around 1,200 calories per day. That’s a lot, as you well know (I visited your website; it’s very good). A thirty minute run, on the other hand, at a fast pace will on a good day burn 300 calories, much of which is water; a two hour run 1,200, but in general (they’re are of course exceptions), when you go for a two hour run at fast pace, your subsequent appestat will not respond proportionately to those 1,200 calories you’ve burned. Seriously speaking, I’ve seen professional runners — I’m talking folks who are running two or even three times a day, pounding out forty or fifty miles a day — who literally eat all day and all night, including when they’re running. I’m talking 20,000 calories a day, which is way more than they’re burning. And yet they’re indeed slim; but it’s not primarily the exercise that makes them so: it’s genetic predilection, which is probably why many of them are good runners in the first place, and which is ultimately the main (but not the only) determiner of weight. That’s really all I’m saying.
None of which is meant to imply that one shouldn’t therefore exercise. On the contrary, muscle is more efficient than fat at burning calories, and of course exercise has a hundred other benefits that have little or nothing to do with weight loss, not least of which is the justifiable sense of accomplishment and self-discipline it instills within us. Self-discipline is the basis of character, as Oscar Wilde once said.
I think only that it’s dangerous to regard exercise as the sine-qua-non of health and weight loss. It is not. And the relationship between exercise and weight loss is very complicated and still poorly understood by science.
On October 16th, 2008 at 11:55 pm merrymishaps said:
Great job in your relay leg!
If you’re looking for a local half in the spring, check out the Annapolis Striders’ B&A Marathon and Half Marathon. It’s small, but run well. A good friend of mine is the race director, and another makes sure there is tons of food when you’re done. I usually work a water stop.
If you’re up for a destination race … I’ll be running the Disney Princesses Half Marathon in March!
It was great meeting you at BlogHerDC. I’ve now fixed my feedreader :)
Check out merrymishapss last blog post..non-contest winner!
On October 17th, 2008 at 2:48 am madison said:
congrats on surpassing your goal!!
Check out madisons last blog post..thai indulgence
On October 17th, 2008 at 4:25 am Christy said:
Holy cow! The site with the airbrushed models is really interesting. It is crazy that they edit so much.
Grats on beating your running goal. I should set some exercise goals…but I don’t want too many goals at this point. My main focus is weight loss.
Check out Christys last blog post..Question of the week…
On October 17th, 2008 at 10:58 am Kim said:
You have to be kidding me on the airbrushed models thing. Gosh. Why do people even NEED models anymore… they take something and then create something different out of them.
That crap pisses me off. Of course people have low self esteem.
Thank you for sharing. Off to send the link to all my girlfriends.
On October 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm Biz said:
Hey Roni!
Quick question, if you have time. What do you eat before a race? I am running a 5K on Sunday, and wondered if you chose protein or carbs.
Thanks!
Check out Bizs last blog post..Boring Breakfast
On October 17th, 2008 at 3:54 pm Tina said:
I’ve missed your blog! I haven’t been back in awhile!
On October 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm Giyen said:
Roni,
Just saw your playtex video on Blogher. You were hilarious and full of energy. I don’t know where you get all the energy from … if you are like me, then you only write about 5% of what actually happens in the day. I shudder to think all the other things you are doing but aren’t blogging about. :-)
On October 22nd, 2008 at 8:47 pm Katie Green said:
Hi Roni! Thanks so much for participating in the Playtex videos; I think you did great. :) I take all the responsibility for the delay in editing…we honestly didn’t think we would have so many great interviews to work with! We had a blast with them, and I hope did too. I’m enjoying your blog!